If the Modern Movement makes one think of the house as a “machine à habiter” (a standardised product that can be reproduced at any latitude) and of volumes irradiated with light floating on punctiform structures, the connection between modernist architecture and the spontaneous and materic constructions of the Mediterranean takes on the contours of an oxymoron. A dichotomy that seems even more accentuated in a secluded context such as the islands, where infiltrations of novelty from the mainland are often regarded with suspicion and where, for geographical reasons, resources and supplies are local.
However, that the Mediterranean vernacular has been a source of inspiration for modern architectural language is demonstrated by the History of Architecture. It was Karl Friedrich Schinkel, at the beginning of the 19th century, among the first to appreciate and decode its characteristics, followed a century later by Joseph Hoffmann and Adolf Loos who, in the footsteps of the Grand Tour, “dragged‘’ architectural thought into the Modern Age by reinterpreting the Mediterranean tradition through the simplification of forms, chiaroscuro contrasts, the use of white and the rejection of any ornamentation (for Loos, equivalent to “ a “crime”).
Later, it was during his “Journey to the Orient” between Istanbul, Athens and Italy in 1911 that Le Corbusier matured the founding principles of his architecture, inspired by the elementary geometries in pure white, the flat roofs, the “ecstatic” dialogue with light of Mediterranean architecture.
A “voyage of discovery” (“not of new lands, but of new eyes”, as Proust would have said) that also fascinated the participants in the fourth Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne of 1933, who sailed from Marseilles on the steamer Patris II towards Greece for a maritime expedition in search of the origins of building, at the end of which Pietro Maria Bardi announced that “the house was born in the Mediterranean” (“Cronaca di Viaggio”, 1933).
If the common denominator between the Mediterranean vernacular and modernism is the need to solve functional needs even more than aesthetic ones (urban housing urgency on the one hand; shelter for men and animals from the fierceness of the sun and atmospheric agents in a rural context, on the other; cost control and efficiency, in both cases), the modernist declinations around Mare Nostrum, destined to be the scene of holiday seasons, however live by their own rules compared to the avant-garde spread elsewhere. Even though the rigour of the plan-volumetric layout betrays a rationalist imprint, the paradigmatic glass and steel constructions, the punctiform structures and light technologies of the Modern Movement are replaced by load-bearing plastic-masonry solutions, realised with solid and opaque natural materials found locally; the openings that nonchalantly filter the light of the northernmost latitudes leave the field to windows calibrated to control the sun's input; the juxtaposition and staggering of volumes derives from the orographic conformation of the site rather than from a planned compositional process.
The result is an architecture that, although free of mimetic attempts as in the best modernist tradition, manages to merge with apparent naturalness into the landscape in which it is located, regardless of the lexicon adopted: from the neat geometries that stand out vividly in the bush (Libera, Ricci, Ponti, Boeri, Bini, Ponis), to those that fade into the context like a-temporal dwellings that have always belonged to that place (Marco Zanuso, Tusquets Blanca, Vietti, Couëlle).
That island house: Italian Mediterranean in 11 modern villas
From Capri to Elba, from Sardinia to Pantelleria, between Gio Ponti, Cini Boeri and Luigi Vietti, we selected 10 architectures that blend modernist vocabulary and vernacular suggestions.
Photo romanple from Adobe Stock
Photo romanple from Adobe Stock
Domus 354, May 1959
Domus 354, May 1959
Domus 732, November 1991
Domus 732, November 1991
Domus 732, Novembre 1991
Domus 732, November 1991
Photo Stefano Ferrando - Studio Vetroblu
Photo Stefano Ferrando - Studio Vetroblu
Photo ©Gabriele Basilico, 1973
Photo ©Paolo Rosselli
Photo Courtesy Fundación Oscar Tusquets Blanca Archive
Photo Courtesy Fundación Oscar Tusquets Blanca Archive
Dante Bini Archive
Dante Bini Archive
Photo Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Parma
Photo Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Parma
Domus 419, ottobre 1964
Domus 419, October 1964
Photo Tiziano Canu
Photo Tiziano Canu
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- Chiara Testoni
- 31 July 2024
Opening image: Villa Malaparte, photo romanple on Adobestock
The solitary house that Adalberto Libera designed for Curzio Malaparte is a brilliant example of how rationalist architecture can harmoniously deal with the landscape. The rigorous parallelepiped, Pompeian red in colour, emerges vigorously from the rugged rock of Punta Massullo. The staircase that seems to lead up to the sky makes the roof an open-air room overlooking the sea.
Built for the couturier Pierre Balmain, the villa in a secluded position amidst the vegetation close to Monte Capanne, with its mighty reinforced concrete structure, large glass surfaces and bizarre volumes formed by the superimposition of elliptical shapes twisted together, resembles a spaceship landed on the Elba Island.
Within a larger project at Capo Perla, near Capoliveri, which included the construction of a hotel, a restaurant and holiday homes, Gio Ponti built only two villas: Villa Allungata, which, as its name suggests, expands longitudinally, offering each room a view of the sea, and Villa Ottagonale, which expands in height in the small lot in which it is located, recalling the typical fortified architecture of the island. From both projects emerges the strong geometric matrix typical of Ponti's work, softened by only apparently random openings that establish specific relationships with the landscape.
In a landscape of rocks sinking into the sea, Mediterranean vegetation and dry-stone walls, Zanuso designed two “twin” holiday homes for two families. The houses form a Greek-cross layout, the centre of which is a patio covered by a pergola of wood and reeds, and the wings are the living quarters. The small architectures with their composed and severe character, in blocks of granite, evoke the spontaneous buildings of the region.
The house, located in the most exposed position of the open gulf towards Corsica, rests on an irregularly sloping rocky terrain. The massive, introverted reinforced concrete shell, reminiscent of a bunker, opens out into a central courtyard that serves as the epicentre of domestic life, around which the private rooms are arranged, and opens out with a patio towards the sea.
The holiday home is the result of the renovation and extension of an old dammuso (a typical rural island construction) made of stone, which local regulations required to preserve. The two-storey dwelling is characterised by a raw atmosphere, accentuated by the rough stone and spartan furnishings. The sequence of concrete pillars, acting as a screen protecting the domestic intimacy and from the ferocity of the sun, is reminiscent of classical ruins, and gives the intervention a post-modern (“pre-classical”, as Ignazio Gardella called it) touch.
The residence for the Vitti-Antonioni couple on the Costa Paradiso in northern Sardinia was conceived as a ‘three-dimensional’ space, permeable to sun, rain and the sound of the sea. The building consists of a dome made of a single concrete casting inflated and raised thanks to an air chamber, according to the Binishell technology that anticipates contemporary sensitivity in issues of sustainability. Today the building is in a state of disrepair and awaits a new life.
Luigi Vietti's residence on the Costa Smeralda does not blend mimetically into the landscape but seems to have always belonged there: the simple volume and rough, natural materials (twisted wood and rough stone in the structures, terracotta in the floors and roofs) dialogue with the sea and the Mediterranean vegetation, which filter through the generous veranda.
The holiday house in Palau, on the east coast of Sardinia, with its sculptural volume of dazzling white, stands out sharply in the landscape with which it engages in a harmonious dialogue. The external stairs and the walkable roof expand the domestic space outside, offering a spectacular view of La Maddalena and the island of Caprera.
Savin Couelle has inherited the talent of his father Jacques – who fathered the "Costa Smeralda style" together with Busiri Vici, Simon Mossa and Vietti – and the vision of an emotional and at times dreamlike architecture, which does not flaunt luxury but suggests it with elegance. In his different works, scattered throughout the area, we find organic and enveloping forms interwoven with the landscape, indigenous materials such as stone and juniper wood, and "sartorial" attention to detail, thanks to a craftsmanship approach in synergy with local workers.